


Never Plan by the Past

by Allekha



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Cultural Differences, Extra Treat, Gen, LGBTQ Themes, Post-Canon, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 23:21:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21261293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: Gillian is finding that there's a lot of things different about culture in the future, but one of the differences that catches her off-guard is that it's acceptable for her to like women.





	Never Plan by the Past

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lah_mrh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lah_mrh/gifts).

It's a long while before Gillian ever has time to get to future entertainment – she's so busy with the whales and re-learning all the computer systems and even the _statistics_ she needs to know are new. But there's one day when she's too exhausted from reading papers to do anything but collapse mindlessly onto the bed in her new futuristic quarters on the new futuristic research vessel and scroll around on her new futuristic hand-held screen and check out out the new futuristic movies.

There are plenty of options – three-dimensional movies, virtual-reality experiences, works from alien worlds. So many that she doesn't even try to read the descriptions. She scrolls and scrolls, looking at the images and clips, until she finds one with a picture of a woman on a ship, staring across the ocean, that has a good rating.

Gillian isn't enough of a film buff to think much about the cinematography of the future, but the movie is good, and the story isn't all that off from what she knows. The movie's in Chinese, the main actress soft-spoken, caught between her interests in traditional culture and her desire to study the animals of the ocean. She's very pretty, too. Gillian likes the movie immediately, especially when it takes its time showing off with long underwater shots, the main character narrating over them as fascinating creatures swim across the screen.

The most novel thing about the movie, for the first half, is the fact that it's from the other side of the Earth. Gillian starts to wonder how Vulcan or Andorian films are different from Human ones, before she gets swept back into the film. The main character's best friend starts an argument with her over her research, and then she starts to cry, and then the main character kisses her.

Gillian stares at the screen. Rewinds ten seconds. Watches the kiss again. Keeps hitting that rewind button over and over for a couple of minutes.

Nobody mentioned _this_ about the future.

Gillian watches the rest of the film play out. The main character and her friend get married in the end and pledge to research how marine biology inspires traditional legends and mythical creatures. When the movie is over, Gillian flicks it off the screen and stares at the description; there are tags on it indicating the content. Tags that indicate that there is a romance between two women in it. She clicks on that one and gapes at the thousands of movies _that_ brings up.

She could spend all night watching films where women kiss and marry other women. Instead, Gillian does what she does best: she researches.

In the morning, Gillian stumbles into breakfast and sits down heavily at the table, her mind whirling. It's not an unfamiliar feeling nowadays, but it's worse today than usual. One of her crewmate friends, an older woman from Nairobi, brings her coffee with a concerned look. "Are you okay?" she asks.

"I like women," Gillian blurts. A second later, she thinks that maybe she shouldn't have said that, and then thinks that no, it's okay to say that, and she's too elated and exhausted at once to think about it any further.

"Okay," her friend says, then tries, "Congratulations?" When Gillian laughs weakly and takes the proffered coffee, she says, "I take it that's a bigger deal for you than for the rest of us."

"I think so."

"They didn't have that in the past?"

"We did," says Gillian. The coffee is too hot to drink but she tries anyway. She really should have attempted to get some sleep; she has to lead a presentation on the whales today, and then take in information from a meeting about how they're going to rebuild the species. She needs to be calm. She needs to be awake. For the sakes of Gracie and George and the unborn baby. So she takes a deep breath. "We did, but it wasn't normal."

"Oh." Her friend's brow furrows as she sits down next to her. "It always sounds like normal was a lot different back then when you talk about it. I mean, you didn't know about aliens, right? Did have whales, though."

Whales and all sorts of other things. That's not the only thing the biologists and historians have picked her brain about. The future has its own problems, she knows that, but oh god it's okay to say she likes women and her co-worker has barely reacted. She can go on an encyclopedia and find thousands of famous men married to other men. She could spend the rest of her days watching films where women kiss and sleep together and nobody around her knows how lucky they are.

"We had the politician, and the health crisis, and the protests, and people getting disowned, and – it wasn't good. San Francisco was better than other places, but it still wasn't good."

"I'm sorry," her friend says, but Gillian can see she doesn't understand. For once. Usually it's Gillian who doesn't understand – why she's supposed to say this instead of that, why humanity needed to go and have a third world war, what she's expected to know about biology now. It's been a hard crash-course sometimes.

She takes another breath. "It's okay. It's just a lot to take in." She pushes her hair back with one hand and looks around. "Everything is. Lot's different. I didn't expect that to be different, too. Probably should have noticed by now."

"You've been busy catching up. I'm sure I'd be overwhelmed if you dropped me into your time," her friend offers kindly. "You want any food to go with that coffee?"

Gillian has breakfast. She checks on her whales. She drinks enough coffee to make herself clear-headed for the day. And when she's off work, she lays on her bed and looks at her tablet, and she does not go for all the scientific reading she has pinned on her to-do list, but for another film with a romance between women.

She doesn't have time for her own romance. Not now, or in the foreseeable future. But one day she'll be caught up, and one day she'll have time, and when that day comes, Gillian wants to be comfortable instead of awed by her new options.


End file.
